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What guides the many facets of how animals behave? How has it changed during domestication, and what does it tell us about their welfare? Focusing on chickens and dogs, we tackle such questions using ethology, genetics and epigenetics.

Researchers from LiU were among the first to show that stress can be inherited from chickens to their offspring - something that few believed previously. Today, research is conducted in a large, internationally renowned group.

The AVIAN - Behavioural Genomics and Physiology group at ¸£Àû¼§ studies the genetic basis of behaviour and physiology.

Graduate school Forum Scientium, a bridge between medicine, natural sciences and engineering, stimulates creativity and a common use of ideas, knowledge, and equipment.

We investigate how environmental exposures such as nutrition, contaminants or stress interfere with developmental and epigenetic mechanisms in various model organisms.

Our research focuses on the genetic basis of domestication, feralisation and behaviour. We use the twin processes of domestication and feralisation to unravel the genetic basis of complex traits.

We are interested in understanding behavioural variation, and most of our research is on causes and consequences of animal personality, including links to cognition, sexual selection. We mainly (but not only) use red junglefowl as our model species.

The tendency of dogs to seek contact with their owner is associated with genetic variations in sensitivity for the hormone oxytocin, according to a new study from ¸£Àû¼§.

Different genes are involved during the adaptation of a domestic animal to life in the wild than when a wild animal becomes domesticated. This is the conclusion of a study led by a LiU researcher.

We study the mechanisms underlying between-species differences in sensory capabilities. Which roles do genes, anatomy, ecology, and behavior play in this context? Further, we study lateralized behavior, e.g. limb preferences, in mammals.